


Vibrant

by colazitron



Series: 2017 December Holiday Fic Countdown [15]
Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, M/M, POV Outsider, Somewhat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 06:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13025292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colazitron/pseuds/colazitron
Summary: Sana, Eva, and Jonas and their thoughts about Isak and Even.





	Vibrant

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** I am in no way affiliated with the characters depicted herein or their creators. I made this all up and am sharing it for fun only.
> 
> for tumblr anon

Sana never really believed in teenage love before. Not that she thinks teenagers are too young to fall in love or anything like that, it just never seemed worth it. Apart from how falling in love and dating would definitely not be the same for her as for the white girls she went to school with, apart from how going to school became more and more hateful and other people less and less something Sana wanted to experience much of, it just seemed so pointless.

Jonas used to be in love with Ingrid and cheated on her with Eva. Then Eva was in love with Jonas and Jonas was in love with Eva. But Eva still cheated on him with Chris. Vilde was infatuated with William and he, frankly, wasn't worth the oxygen his breathing used up. Isak was in love with Eva – or, well, Jonas probably, given the more recent developments, but the point stands – and that made him poke at all the most fragile places of her relationship with Jonas until it crumbled. Then Isak dated Sara who he's dated and dumped before only to dump her again a few weeks later. And Noora was suddenly in love with William who was still not worth the air he breathes it turned out when he left for London after his brother assaulted her.

It's not that Sana thinks none of those emotions are real or deep or painful or wonderful. It's just that she thinks none of them lead anywhere. And isn't that what love is supposed to do? To lead somewhere? To build a support system that you can rely on? Not just today, and not just when the weather's nice, but in stormier times to come too? Sure, Yousef makes her blush, and makes her smile to herself, but she's not going to end up engaged to some guy before she's twenty just so he can stick it in. That's not going to be Sana.

And then, even though she doesn't know the ins and outs of what happens before December, the first time she speaks to Even again in almost a year he's in Eskild's kitchen kissing Isak. He's kissing Isak and when she walks in, Isak doesn't startle, doesn't move away from Even at all, just smiles at her with a warmth she's never seen on his face. She doesn't know him well, beyond being Eva's ex-boyfriend's best friend and the source of much heartache for her friend. And quite smart. She can admit that to herself, if not to him.

But he seems genuinely pleased to call her his friend even though they've had no more than two or three actual conversations ever, and when Sana leaves again she can hear the two of them laughing together behind her. She can't help but smile at the sound. Eva's forgiven him, and she understands struggling with one's place enough to be happy he seems to have found one.

Truthfully, Sana doesn't expect it to last. Even was still seeing Sonja a few months ago and though Isak becomes markedly easier to be around, his jokes more teasing than barbed, his patience a little stronger, his smiles brighter, Sana has no reason to assume they'll stay together. It's just how young love is. It burns bright but it burns quick too, more often than not.

Only Isak and Even don't stop. When they're not kissing, they're holding hands. When they're not holding hands, they're joking together. When they're not joking together, they're giving each other looks every few minutes like they're having conversations no one else gets to be a part of. When they move in together in the spring she honestly debates grabbing either or both of them to pull them aside and ask them if they're out of their minds.

“They're not trying to build something to last forever,” Eva says, when Sana brings it up with her one afternoon.

“They're renting an apartment together,” Sana points out. “That's a real commitment.”

Eva shrugs. “Well, I assume they're reasonably certain they won't want to move out again anytime soon, but I think they're just not putting the pressure of knowing this is going to last forever on themselves right now.”

Sana frowns to herself, mulling Eva's words over.

“You know,” Eva says, “at the kosegruppa Christmas thing at Eskild's, Isak told me he has no idea if Even's The One or anything and that he doesn't really care either. He just doesn't want to be scared of living how he wants to anymore and that he'd be grateful to have been with Even even if it doesn't last at all.”

“I guess,” Sana says.

“I think he has the right idea,” Eva goes on and smiles at her. “Love doesn't have to last forever to be good. And you don't have to follow some sort of pre-made formula to do it right. In the end it's just the two of you who get to decide what's right for you.”

In the end, Sana doesn't try and talk them out of moving in together, but she still thinks they're a bit mad for doing it. Living moment by moment and all that sounds romantic, sure, but it's just not practical. And in the end, love is still a commitment, however you want to look at it. It's not all romance. There is a lot of pragmatism to love.

Still, she finds she can't really stop smiling around them. Can't stop looking at them. And when Yousef says hello to her now, she doesn't look away from him either.

  


*******

  


Sometimes when Eva sees Isak and Even together she wonders how she ever believed he had a crush on her, even if it was only for a week or two. But if Noora hadn't found that porn on Isak's phone, she probably would have continued to believe it. Would have believed he'd gotten back together with Sara. Would have believed the stories about this or that girl hooking up with him at one or the other party.

Sometimes she wonders if that means she was a bad friend. She was so caught up in her own heartache and her feelings for Jonas that she didn't see his dislike for Elias was different than her own. That she didn't put together the way he flinched whenever anyone called him girly, or soft, or gay.

Sure, between the two of them, Isak definitely holds first place in being wrapped up in his heartache and Jonas and being a bad friend over it all, but when she walks back from the kosegruppa Christmas party at Eskild's place, his words about being real still echoing in her mind, she suddenly thinks of a year ago, when she'd confronted him in Iben's kitchen. The way he'd looked at her with wide, wounded eyes and asked _Do you really not know_ _why_ _? Think about it._ She'd just yelled at him about trust and how he'd ruined her entire life, and still in that moment he'd been prepared to put his trust in her. He'd wanted her to have figured it out.

Sometimes she wonders how different things would have been if she had. If she had made their friendship less about her needing him and more about them needing each other, their two lonely hearts trailing after Jonas like he was the only boat in a wide open sea, when Jonas has never been particularly good at carrying anyone anywhere. Even through his jealousy and his own heartache, Isak was still the one who listened to her go on about Ingrid and Sara, was still the one who encouraged her to stand her ground – even though he must have known she'd eventually stand it against him. Where Jonas had told her he couldn't even see a person when he looked at her, Isak told her to fuck everyone and just be.

Betrayal or not, he had helped her. Had genuinely cared about her. If Eva hadn't believed that she couldn't have forgiven him as easily as she did.

These days she's just happy for him. It took a while for their friendship to pick up again, but now they sometimes go on sort of double dates, Jonas, her and Isak and Even. And although the conversation tends to turn to topics the boys discuss among themselves while she sits and listens in, she likes the opportunity to observe them. The way Isak and Even always seem to seek contact. The way they talk with their eyes. How relaxed they are around each other. And sometimes Isak and Jonas will fall into a debate over homework, or an article one of them read, or an obscure bit of trivia that they each remember differently, and Even will put his hand on Isak's thigh, or around his shoulders, and turn to Eva to talk to her about anything at all so long as it's not that.

And then when she catches Isak's eye across the table, he'll look at her in a way that makes her think he's remembering that wide-eyed, wounded boy in Iben's kitchen too.  Maybe he's remembering how she used to cuddle up under his arm and how he promised her things would be okay, even when he was lying. How they skyped each other for hours when Jonas wasn't around just so they wouldn't be quite so lonely.  How they should have trusted each other more.

But, Penetrator-detours or not, they made it here in the end.

“Oh my god!” Eva says at the thought and bursts out laughing in a way that has all three boys looking at her with varying levels of confusion.

“Are you okay?” Jonas asks fondly when she turns to hide her laughing face in his shoulder.

“Fine, I just remembered--” she tries to say but cuts herself off with another bout of giggles.

“Oh god, in first year, remember? When the Yakuza stuff was going on?”

Jonas and Isak nod, frowns now even more confused. That whole thing isn't generally a laughing matter.

“Noora and I thought Isak was hooking up with Penetrator Chris!”

“What?!” Isak yelps, the look on his face so offended it makes her laugh again, only this time she's joined by Even and Jonas. “Why would you think that?!”

“It made sense at the time!” Eva insists. “You were always secretly hanging around him; getting into his car behind school, making mysterious call-me signs, and then he didn't want to hook up with me anymore!”

Isak rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, because Chris was always a paragon of loyal monogamy.”

“He hasn't cheated on Emma,” Eva points out.

“Wait, Emma-Emma?” Even asks, turning a delightedly amused grin on Isak. “Your almost-ex Emma? You've hooked up with her boyfriend?”

“I did not hook up with him!” Isak protests.

“But that would be hilarious,” Even says. “Even though he's not your type.”

“Oh, so you know what my type is, do you?” Isak asks, but he's clearly teasing. Grin bright and eyebrows raised while he tilts his chin up and lets Even pull him closer with the arm around his shoulders.

“Yeah,” Even says through his own grin, more softly now, and then kisses Isak even more softly.

No matter how they got here, Eva's glad they're here now, the four of them.

  


*******

  


When Isak starts seeing Even – for real this time, not in secret and behind several people's backs – Jonas feels like  he's suddenly seeing something that was there all along.

Not that Isak's gay, though he can't help but wonder how he missed it, how long Isak has known, why he decided to hide it from him. Not from everyone, but from  _him._ Jonas is supposed to be his best friend. But then he remembers Elias, and all the joking around, and Isak's sunny disposition dimming more and more until he became what he was last fall – sullen and unhappy.

Isak was unhappy,  and lost, and lonely, and Jonas doesn't know for how long, because he missed it.  He doesn't get how he could have not seen it, when the change in Isak is so drastic that Mahdi jokes that if having a boyfriend can make someone appear to have a personality transplant the way Isak does, then maybe he should try it too.

The thing is that Isak's no different than Jonas has always known him to be. When they were kids together, Isak was always loud and bright, quick to laugh and easy to be around, usually surrounded by a group of a few friends who all wanted to bask in the glow he seemed to give off. Not one to have a lot of close friends, maybe, but definitely someone who's generally on good terms with everyone around him.

He's not exactly like that anymore. He's wittier and more sarcastic.  But even though he'll tease and mock, he does it with a smile, seemingly always careful to never truly do any lasting damage. And he's always got an open ear for anyone who needs it. Talks to Jonas about his own problems again as well, and it's only now that they do it again that Jonas remembers that before Fifa and weed they used to actually talk to each other. Isak used to talk about his mother. Jonas used to talk about how much the future scared him. And then he got a girlfriend and a weed dealer and didn't want to let anyone know that those things scared him t o o – not even Isak and his sunny disposition who didn't seem to need any additional burdening.

It's only in looking back that Jonas realises Isak did try to talk to him sometimes. Maybe not about being gay, maybe not about his mother, or maybe just not in so many words. But Jonas was always a little scared of what would come bubbling out if he let himself dig too deep into his own mind, and laughed Isak's attempts off. It's no wonder it took Isak so long to finally talk to him again. He hasn't made it easy.

That's the thing about Even and Isak, Jonas thinks. Even when he knows that it's not all easy, is probably actually, objectively, more difficult than it is easy, they make it look like they've always known how to be together. They make moon-eyes at each other like a newly-wed couple and bicker like they've been married for fifty years. They've learned how to fight and forgive so quickly. They make being in love look so simple.

Sometimes, Jonas knows, you're too close to see a development unless you're looking for it. But he's still so glad he gets to see Isak being happy and in love from front row seats. He missed Isak, and he missed who Isak made him in turn. From now on, he's just gonna keep a closer eye on him. They don't exactly make it hard anyway. They glow so brightly around each other it can probably be seen from space.

Jonas wouldn't have it any other way.

  


**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> Come prompt me on my tumblr @fille-lioncelle if you want!


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